Pretty Hate Machine Shoes
NIN Pretty Hate Machine Inspired Shoes
To prepare for my ninth Nine Inch Nails show and a special band Q&A session at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, I decorated some Vans shoes to resemble the Pretty Hate Machine album cover.
After watching some YouTube videos about painting Vans, I bought the recommended supplies and sketched out the potential design in Procreate. I removed the laces, inserted a shoe tree, and used a pencil to draw a rough outline of the machine ribs onto one of the shoes. Then it was time to paint.
For the pink shoe, I used a mix of Hot Pink and Magenta Angelus Acrylic Leather Paint, along with 2 - Soft Fabric Medium Additive to help the canvas stay nice and soft. I was surprised by how easily the paint adhered to the shoe. I was able to mostly stay in the lines as I painted, and only needed a few coats to achieve the pink I was looking for.
Not having a design sketched onto the other shoe, I started painting my own version of machine ribs. I was worried I royally messed up the paint for this one, as it would soak into the fabric and disappear. I used a mixture of Blue, Green and Neutral paints, and may have used too much 2 - Soft. It took many, many, many coats before I saw the blue appear on the black fabric. Every few coats I would blast the area with a heat gun set to 300 degrees, per the 2 - Soft directions.
A few days later I was less than impressed with the shoes, so I bought a silver Tulip Fabric Paint Marker to jazz them up. I outlined the machine ribs along with the Vans Sidestripe, and then got the idea to channel my inner high school angst and write song lyrics. I grabbed a silver Sharpie and perused the PHM CD booklet to choose my favorite lyrics from Down In It, being very careful as I spelled the words in capital letters. I went back and forth on the pink shoe, eventually opting for my favorite part of Terrible Lie (the bridge).
I never really felt that the pink shoe was finished, but it was a day before Nine Inch Nails Fan Day and I was running out of time, so I hit them with one more heat gun session and sprayed them with a few coats of Kiwi Protect-All Waterproofer.
Inspecting them now after the concert, the paints held up great. I got some nice comments on them throughout the weekend, and wearing them made me feel a little more alternative and punk rock.
